Colors of Life
by Orfeo D. Knightwalker
Summary: Lost Colors oneshot series: To him, the world was grey. There was nothing that sparked his interest anymore. But little by little, he piled up experiences, and soon he began to see the world's beautiful colors once again. Rai-centric. Various pairings. (ABANDONED)


Well, this is my first time posting a story in a while. I hadn't originally intended to start another fanfic right now, as I've been working on a long-term fanfic that I eventually intend to post, but I recently received some advice from a teacher, who told me that if I wanted to seriously write, I had to do it every day, no matter what kind of writing it is. And so, after digging out a short oneshot I wrote a while back and editing it a little, the result was this fanfic. (Now I just gotta keep to this commitment of mine...I sense difficult battles of will-power ahead...)

This fanfic is a series of oneshots based on the visual novel game "Code Geass: Lost Colors", which many people in the Code Geass fandom have at least heard of. This isn't the first time I've written an oneshot for LC, but unlike my last one, I intend to keep this fanfic going on a regular basis. (I thought that, since I'm still developing my plot skills, I would start out by just writing out any ideas I have and making oneshots about them that I will post here.) The chapters will all likely vary in length, but I at least guarantee that they will be each a minimum of 1000 words, though I will usually aim for longer.

The basic guidelines for this fanfic is that each chapter will involve Rai, the main character from the Lost Colors game, and the experiences he has after awakening without any memories in Tokyo, Area 11. The chapters will be confined to the time of his awakening and the end of the game for the most part, but they will also take place in the different possible routes throughout the game, meaning that there is no real chronology or connection between most chapters. Essentially, as long as the idea fits with the background of the game, the oneshots will be posted here without any care for order or timeline. It's all basically what comes to me at the time.

As for pairings, I will likely be trying out many of them, and they will not all be confined to Rai either, though he'll be an integral part of each story. Also, though I will devote some chapters to just romance, there will also be chapters to devoted to more platonic themes. Basically, this fanfic will probably have a little of everything in it, as I try out the different ideas for Lost Colors that come to mind. As such, there will be equal doses of comedy, romance, drama, and just plain thoughtful scenes, so there should be something for everybody here.

So, with all that said, please enjoy this little introductory chapter. There's not really much to this oneshot, as it's more of a way to give a little insight into Rai's character and history than anything else. Future chapters will have more plot and development, I promise.

EDIT: I revised a few parts and added an extra section with C.C. at the end. We won't be seeing much more from her perspective, however, as I added more because this first chapter felt a bit incomplete. C.C. will likely appear in some fashion in later chapters, however.

_Disclaimer: I do not own the anime Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, nor the PS2/PSP game "Code Geass: Lost Colors". If I did, the Code Geass franchise would have expanded far more quickly than it has up until now._

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><p><span>Chapter 1: Nightmares and Questions<span>

_He dreamed._

_Dreamed of a kind woman that cared for him and loved him unconditionally, no matter what others thought or said of them. She was precious to him, so he wanted to protect her._

_Dreamed of a young, delicate girl, who she folded origami with him, her innocence and happiness a light in his dark world. She was precious to him, so he wanted to protect her._

_Dreamed of a happy, warm home, together with these two, the only place in the world he was truly at peace. This place, this life, was precious to him, so he wanted to protect it._

_It was only a dream, but he didn't care; he was content right now, lulled by the bliss of this dream, and he just wanted to stay here, to stay with them. He just wanted to protect this happiness._

But to protect something, one requires power...

_Suddenly, a voice, silky and sly, whispered these words in his dream. And with it appeared a small child, seemingly innocent and fragile, but those eyes...Those eyes were an endless abyss, no emotion in them, empty of feeling, like that of one who has stopped caring about anything in this world. The child smiled, and offered a hand._

It seems you have a reason to live. Do you want the power to protect that reason?

_A reason to live...Those two, precious people instantly came to mind, and he knew without thinking about it that they were his reason. And he also knew he would protect them, no matter the price...or the sin._

If so...I can give you this power, through this contract. With it, you will live in the world of humans, but live unlike any other. A different providence, a different time, a different life...The Power of Kings will bring you great loneliness, but if you are prepared, accept this contract and this power...In exchange, I ask only that you grant my one wish...

_There was no need to hesitate; no need to ponder the right or wrong of this contract presented to him. He had something he wanted to protect, and before him was the power to protect it. It was that simple._

_And so, he reached out, and grasped the boy's hand, accepting the contract, and the consequences that would come with it._

_And from there, his once blissful dream became a blood-filled nightmare, with only death and despair surrounding him, propagated by him, all of it created by that one simple act. And then, the climax of it all came, and he watched in horror as..._

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><p>Rai awoke with a start, jumping from sleep to full awareness as his entire upper body shot out of his blankets, his face dripping with cold sweat and his mouth gasping and heaving for air. His hand came to his face as he tried to calm himself down, but it took him a full minute before his body relaxed, and even then he shivered all over in the aftershock of it all.<p>

But his mind, at least, was clear now, letting him take in his surroundings. He was in bed, in his room; or more specifically, the room given to him by Ashford Academy, in the campus' clubhouse. Slowly, his memories came together and he was once again Rai, the mysterious, amnesiac boy that had suddenly appeared at the school a short time ago, knowing only his name, and who had been living there since.

Having regained his identity, Rai took stock of his situation. It was still nighttime, apparently only just past midnight, according to the nearby clock. After taking note of that, he realizing what had just happened to him, though the simplicity of the cause of his violent reaction seemed silly when compared to the intensity of the reaction itself; he'd been having a bad dream.

_Or rather, a nightmare...The same one as those other times, no doubt,_ thought Rai as he tiredly got out of bed, heading towards the small, yet fully-equipped bathroom which adjourned his room. He'd been having this nightmare every once in a while since arriving here, and he always woke up in the same manner, though he could never remember anything of the dream afterwards.

Turning on the sink and washing his face with the cool, refreshing water for a few moments, Rai then turned to look at himself in the mirror, though he already knew what he would see. The lidded eyes, the tired face, the lack of energy...While he certainly wasn't the most expressive and emotive of individuals (his attempt to smile at Milly that one time had created more awkwardness than joviality), right then his face looked exhausted even to him. He looked like he had just gone through something incredibly draining, both physically and mentally. Even his eyes seemed to have lost the will to live anymore.

_Just was did I dream of..._wondered Rai as he continued to stare at his reflection. The only thing he could ever recall of his nightmare was that feeling of absolute despair and anguish he felt at the end of it, consuming him to the point where he was forced awake like he'd been just now.

_Is it merely a nightmare...? Or...is it something I'm remembering? From before I came to Ashford?_

Milly had told him to pay attention to his dreams, saying that he might get glimpses of his lost memories through them. (Though she had also been trying to get him to let her hypnotize him into remembering, an idea he didn't like, considering who she was, and what she might do to him in such a helpless state...No, hypnosis was definitely a bad idea, he thought, especially after he saw Milly's childish disappointment when he politely refused, as if she had just lost a chance to get a new toy to play with...) And so he tried to pay attention to his dreams when he could, though he rarely remembered them in much detail.

But, when his dreams were like this, it left him more uncertain about his past than before, and even more worried about what would happen when he finally remembered. After all, what kind of memory could cause such a disturbing and fearful nightmare?

Finally breaking eye contact with his mirror self, he picked up a nearby towel and wiped his face with it, clearing away the droplets of water as he tried to also clear away his depressing thoughts. As he finished, though, and started heading back to bed, he couldn't help but have one last thought.

_Who am I, really? What happened in my past, and just how did I get here? Did something terrible happen to me, something so horrible it makes me have nightmares that I can't even remember it? And, if something like that did happen...Do I truly want to remember, in the end?_

Weary, he returned to sleep without an answer, to any of his questions.

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><p><em>So it happened again,<em> thought C.C. as she watched Rai return to bed, her eye looking through the small slit in the slightly ajar door to the room. _And it must have been really bad this time, from that look on his face._

C.C. inwardly sighed, as a feeling akin to frustration rose up within her. Though there were few things left in this world that could truly aggravate (besides badly cooked pizza; that was just heresy), this young boy was starting to become something of an annoyance to her.

It had started two weeks ago, right after the new student had joined Lelouch and Nunnally (and C.C., of course) as an inhabitant of the student council clubhouse. At the time, she hadn't really paid much attention to his arrival (nor to Lelouch's nagging that she had to be extra careful now not to be seen), and had just filed the boy away as another face within the school. The fact that he had amnesia and no home had little effect on her; after all, she had seen far worst fates than that, for which forgetting would be considered a blessing.

And yet, only hours after she concluded the boy to be of little importance and decided to forget about him, she awoke brutally in the middle of the night, with a barely held-back scream in her throat and a burning sensation coming from the Geass sigil on her forehead. At first, she had thought that it was reacting to Lelouch, but she quickly discarded that idea, as he was still nowhere near powerful enough to lose control of his Geass. Besides, the feeling had been different, more…sorrowful.

After twenty minutes of searching, she had finally found the source that was reacting to her Code: the new, white-haired boy, who had been thrashing in his bed at the time, clearly having a nightmare. After that, it didn't take long to realize why; the boy clearly had a Geass, so powerful that it practically radiated off him. She was astonished that she hadn't noticed it the moment he came onto the school campus.

The moment she discovered this, C.C. seriously considered killing him. After all, since she wasn't one of her contractors, he could only have come from V.V., and interference from outside Geass users, especially the Order, was the last thing she wanted. For the first time in so long, she could truly believe that Lelouch would finally be the one to rid her of her curse. Having others snooping about would only jeopardize that.

Still, in the end, she chose to leave him be for the time being. Not only would it be troublesome having to deal with the consequences of a new student suddenly disappearing on campus (she had no doubt that she could get away with it, but then she'd likely receive hell from Lelouch for doing something so extreme in his own home, especially so close to his precious sister), there was also too many questions surrounding this boy called "Rai", both about his identity and her strange reactions to his nightmares.

And so, for the last two weeks, she had surreptitiously observed Rai in her spare time, without mentioned it to Lelouch. From her observations, she had learned two things of importance. First, unlike when he was in the midst of one of his nightmares, his Geass was almost invisible to her during the day unless she was close to him, as if his power was being held back by something when he was awake. Second, he had those nightmares almost every night, and each time she would have the same intense reaction herself, though it wasn't quite as violent now that she was expecting it. (Though the lack of sleep was beginning to get on her nerves.)

Besides that, however, there was almost nothing else to say about him, and that troubled C.C. greatly. Though Rai showed that he was both smart and athletic in his classes, he had practically no personality; he always spoke in short sentences that were neither quiet nor loud, and his expression showed little emotion on it, as if it was a blank sheet of paper. Even for someone like her, who had long grown weary of life and become cold and unfeeling to it all, the boy's lack of any describable _self _was unnerving.

For most Geass users, passion and strong feelings were what drove them the most, yet this boy seemed to have none of that. The more she looked into him, the more he became an enigma to her.

_Well, there's nothing I can do about it now,_ thought C.C. as she silently closed the door and started walking back to her room. Really, in the end, observing was all she could do for the time being. She still had too little information on him, so she didn't dare approach him yet, not when he might be a spy from V.V. (she wouldn't put it past him).

And besides, if she were honest to herself, she was interested in the boy, despite her irritation at being constantly woken up like this. It had been a long time since she had encountered something so mysterious and unknown to her (usually, that was how others viewed her), so it was somewhat amusing to play the detective for once. Moreover, the boy had potential. If he really wasn't working for V.V. (though that raised questions and problems of its own), then he could be useful to Lelouch, both with his obvious skills and his Geass, though she hadn't determined his power yet. It was always good to have another pawn at hand, after all.

Still, she was getting ahead of herself. There was still no telling what this boy named Rai would do in the future. Yet for some reason, this brought a smile to C.C.'s face.

"Hmm…things are getting interesting," she said to herself with amusement, as she continued walking through the darkness of the clubhouse halls. "Now, what will you become, young boy without a past…?"

Her question echoed through the halls, but there was no answer. Not yet.


End file.
